Defense Counsel Appealing Death Sentence Imposed on “beast of Belsen” and Confederates

November 19, 1945

Luenebjrg, Germany (Nov. 18)

Brithish defense counsel for Josef Kramer, Irmk. Grese and others of the S.S. staff of Belsen and Oswiecim who were sentenced to hang yesterday, have dispatched appeals to Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, asking mercy for their clients, it was reported today.

Kramer, who was known as the “Beast of Belsen,” and the Grese woman, who was the chief female guard at Belsen, were among eleven defendants sentenced to hang for the extermination of hundreds of thousands of Jews and others in the gas chambers of the belsen and Oswiecim camps. Others who were ordered executed include Dr. Fritz Ilein, who used the Nazi victims for medical experiments and Juana Borman, who was charged with setting dogs on prisoners.

Three men and two women were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment each; one man and eight women, to 10 years, and one man and three women to shorter terms. Fourteen were acquitted.